Wasn't sure if I should post this in the gamer tag thread or what but I figured it was mainly for tags and I have already derailed it in the past. But I just got done drafting this up for my clients and I figured I'd share it with you guys since I know many of you have 360s.

Jerred’s XBOX 360 Care Tips:

Although some of these tips may seem like commonsense, they are all crucial to extending the life of your console. I suggest that you read them carefully and more importantly fallow them.

• Always make sure the Xbox is in a well-ventilated area with very little dust around. Frequently dust the console and surrounding area. Make sure the console isn’t on carpet or any other fabric; this insulates the console with heat and collects dust.

• Never use the console in a vertical position (standing up) – Even though the XBOX 360 is supposed to be able to be played vertically and horizontally, playing it in a vertical position will wear your disk drive’s motor out or worse.

• Don’t leave the console on for long periods of time – Turn it off when you’re not playing it. If playing for an extensive amount of time, turn it off for at least a half hour to let it cool down. Monitor how hot the machine is getting; if it is blowing an intense amount of heat out of the back, it’s probably a good idea to take a break for a while.

• Never transport the console with a disk in the drive – This could not only damage your games but the drive itself.

• Always quit to the dashboard before turning the console off – When you’re finished playing a game/cd/dvd, press the Xbox button in the center of your controller, select Dashboard, wait for the Dashboard to appear and then turn off the console.

• Keep your disks clean and scratch free – While a dirty or scratched disc may play, it will put a lot of strain on your disk drive’s optical lens, which will ultimately cause it to fail.

• Replace the X-Clamps – Whether you do this yourself or have me do it, it is good idea to do this as a preventative measure. Don’t wait for your XBOX to start flashing red lights at you – fix it before it becomes a problem!

• Get an inner cooler – Inner coolers are inexpensive and reduce the core temperature of the console. When shopping for an inner cooler be sure to buy one that runs off of its own independent power supply – you don’t want anything else drawing power from you XBOX 360.

PAWNO wrote:Thanks buddy. But some clarification on quitting the dashboard? Seems like something only the pedantic would do- more of a software issue as oppossed to hard drive issue? . . . .

Possibly. But then that means all of the software has issues. Could be half and half.

Thats why im asking for clarification... JREED was nice enough to pose logic as why you should play the machine on it's horiztonal axis as opposed to it standing up... But telling me to quit the dashboard & not offer any logical reason... HMM!!!
I'm Just interested to know!!

PAWNO wrote:Thanks buddy. But some clarification on quitting the dashboard? Seems like something only the pedantic would do- more of a software issue as oppossed to hard drive issue? . . . .

Possibly. But then that means all of the software has issues. Could be half and half.

Thats why im asking for clarification... JREED was nice enough to pose logic as why you should play the machine on it's horiztonal axis as opposed to it standing up... But telling me to quit the dashboard & not offer any logical reason... HMM!!! I'm Just interested to know!!

FYI you spelled "follow" incorrectly. If you still have a chance to fix it before sending it to your clients, you should do that. Also I agree with Pawno that you should elaborate on that point about properly shutting off the system.

Thanks for the correction d4rk. The reason for quitting to the dash first is because it slows the disc's RPMs down. When a game is playing the disc is spinning at full speed or close to it, turning off the console while it is spinning that fast creates strain on the motor having to abruptly stop. The dash slows the disc down to a much more manageable speed.

I replace 2-4 drives a week because the 360 drives are such poor quality - there are actually 4 different drive manufactures. Here is some info about the drives if you're interested:

Hitachi - Decent drives, I actually don't get many of them coming in broken, they can be used to replace other drives, but they are loud!

Samsung - Probably the most dependable drives, I hardly see any of these.

Liteon - the 2nd most common, they are in most newer consoles, they are a pain in the ass to fix/replace. I get quite a few of these so I believe they aren't very good quality.

Benq - Seems like these ether have the highest failure rate or are the most common. They are the quietest, by far the easiest to work with and parts/replacements are easy to find and cheap. These are the only other drive other than the Hitachi that can be used as a replacement for another drive.

You can actually determine what kind of drive you have with out even opening up the console, just google it.

-You can flash the firmware on the drives to enable playing of burned (copied games)

-You can mod the 360 by JTAG'ing it so you can get all the xbox live arcade games and download-able content for free. Plus you can play games directly off of a external hard drive - I have a 200 gb usb hard drive hooked up to my 360 that currently has 30 games on it and I have almost every xbox live arcade game on my xbox hdd.

-You can make your own rapid fire controller that will basically turn any gun in a shooter fully auto - this is helpful in games like World at War that have a lot of semi auto guns. You can also buy kits to do this or just by a premodded controller.

-You can play divx/xvid video files (that you download via torrent or something) either off discs, usb drives or stream them over your home network off of your PC.

Quick Question... DO you know if the only way I can transfer my data from one HDD to another is to contact microsoft? I looked on their website and I cant find a migration kit.

I got my new 120 GB drive collecting dus t while I still use this tiny 20 GB one.

Oh bummer, Yeah i just remembered the HD that comes with the system (it's a really big silver tampon that sits on top of the machine)

I can't really think of a connector that would fit into it to tfr (perhaps there's a 3rd party docking system where you can attach the 2nd hard drive)

I actually was able to find the migration cable that microsoft sells after I posted that message. For some reason they dont have listed under XBOX 360 accessories but when you google "xbox 360 migration kit" its the first thing that pops up.